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Schools In America In the Blood-Soaked Year of Our Ostensible Lord 2018

Gutless Trump's already caved and returned to groveling at the gory feet of the NRA, but the brave kids and their supporters fight on for gun reform. They have remained steadfast and eloquent in media interviews, calmly noting to those who would dismiss them, "We’ve been locked in a classroom. We have seen our friends text their parents goodbye. We are the experts.” Actions against the madness continue to pop up around the country, like billboards in Florida proclaiming, "The NRA Is A Terrorist Organization." A National School Walkout planned for Wednesday promises to draw hundreds of thousands of kids. Those from Marjory Stoneman Douglas are still speaking out - and ripping the hypocrisy of opportunistic pols like Betsy DeVos - as are their parents. Last weekend, Manuel Oliver, father of victim Joaquin Oliver, was filmed furiously painting a mural with his son’s image and the decree, "We Demand A Change."

Teachers are likewise raising their voices on behalf of their students, those "canaries in the coal mines" of America's murderous landscape who have endured years of shootings and lockdown drills - aka practising for their own deaths. A Pittsburgh teacher described a drill in her classroom of 1st to 5th graders as they cried, panted, clutched hands, asked to be held, sat staring and "casket quiet" and whimpered, "When will it be over?" Afterwards, when she turned the lights back on and announced, "Let's get back to work," she "was greeted with blank faces... petrified faces.... tear stained faces... confused faces...and one 'bitch REALLY?' face. This is teaching in 2018. And no... I don't want a gun #teacherlyfe."

Another teacher views the sense of betrayal and despair that "drives a child to pick up weapons of war and wantonly kill" as "the failure of the American Dream played out in blood" - a failure that teachers alone cannot possibly remedy. "We are martyring our children on the altar of society’s failed promises," she charges, "and then we wonder why they keep coming back with guns in their hands." But #NeverAgain, gun control advocates insist over and over, #ThrowThemOut, and #NotOneMore.

Toward that end, organizers with Avaaz, a global online activist network that earlier trolled Marco Rubio Three-Billboards-style, set up a searing "Monument For Our Kids" Tuesday on the East Lawn of the Capitol: an installation of 7,000 pairs of shoes, one for each child killed by guns since 2012's shooting at Sandy Hook. Some shoes were randomly collected by volunteers across D.C; others belonged to actual victims. Literally and figuratively, they were being laid out at the feet of a craven Congress, which had failed them. Among those taking part was Tom Mauser, who brought a pair of shoes that had belonged to his son Daniel, 15 when he was shot and killed at Columbine. Mauser usually wears the shoes, he said, but he decided he wanted to donate them to "a day like this." For God's sake and the sake of the kids, may there soon be no need for another like it.

Manuel Oliver, father of shooting victim Joaquin Oliver, furiously paints a mural for his son and other victims. pic.twitter.com/kgGcELFwAy

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Further

Lookit These Kids Redux: Over 200 kids in Pennsylvania who defied their school's ban on joining last week's nationwide walkout transformed their ostensible punishment into Civil Disobedience 101 by turning their detention into a silent, moving sit-in. With the community offering support - and pizza - the #Pennridge 225 linked arms, wore the names of Parkland victims and declared the consequences of their actions "a badge of honor" to show "we’ll stand up for what is right."